Bullets connected to a rogue firearms dealer who supplied illegal handguns and homemade bullets to criminal gangs were found at crime scenes in Derbyshire, it has been revealed.

Paul Edmunds made bullets to fit antique weapons and imported hundreds more modern prohibited firearms from the United States, having falsified customs paperwork, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

Opening the case, prosecutor Andrew Fisher QC alleged "tell-tale" marks on ammunition found at crime scenes linked the rounds to tools used by 66-year-old Edmunds.

Paul Edmunds (Image: West Midlands Police/PA Wire)

In all, 17 criminally-linked weapons recovered by police are known to have been imported by Edmunds, while around 1,000 bullets connected to him have been recovered from crime scenes in Derbyshire, the West Midlands, London, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire and West Yorkshire.

The crime scenes included around 50 gang-related shootings and premises raided by police between 2010 and 2016.

But police believe many other guns seized by police across the country were sold by Edmunds, who failed to keep accurate records in his firearms register.

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Edmunds, a former photographer, denied any wrong-doing by importing antique firearms into the UK legally, claiming he had never made and supplied live cartridges for the weapons.

But the court heard how Edmunds supplied guns and live bullets to criminals through middleman Dr Mohinder Surdhar, who he met at a gun fair.

The jury were told Edmunds' bullets were recovered following the Birmingham murders of Derek Myers in 2015 and 18-year-old Kenichi Phillips in 2016.

Detectives discovered that one weapon - imported on November 14 2013 - was used five weeks later in a Boxing Day fatal shooting at the Avalon nightclub in London. Four of Edmunds' bullets were recovered from the victim's body.

Ammunition made by Paul Edmunds in the garage of his home (Image: West Midlands Police/PA Wire)

Following the pensioner's arrest, 100,000 live rounds were seized from the armoury inside his garage, while seven wheelie bin-loads of gun and bullet components were recovered from a bedroom and attic.

He was snared after experts at the National Ballistics Intelligence Service carried out an analysis, uncovering the growing trend of pre-war pistols used in a rash of shootings.

Edmunds, of Bristol Road, Hardwicke, Gloucestershire, was arrested at his home in 2015, where he had three armouries and made bullets to fit antique weapons.

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For his part, Surdhar, 56, from Grove Lane, Handsworth, Birmingham, admitted conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition between 2009 and 2015 before Edmunds' trial.

Edmunds had denied hand-crafting bullets for use in supposedly obsolete vintage weapons, including 19th century revolvers, which he brought into the country legally.

Edmunds' barrister acknowledged that the gun-dealer faces a sentence of at least 25 years when he returns to court, next month.

After being asked to consider a sentence giving the pensioner "some hope" for the future given his age, Judge Richard Bond cited the case of a 101-year-old man he jailed for 13 years in December last year.